How to Get Free Extra Google Drive Storage

As the entertainment and business worlds are rapidly moving towards handling everything online, the ability to store your files and folders and creating backups online, whether they are personal or work related, has become much more important. There are many options, free or paid, to choose from when it comes to online storage, but your budget and the features you seek will be the deciding factor when choosing the right option.

For example, for website owners who want to host their websites, there are cheap web hosting packages to choose from but if what you need is simple storage, you can consider free online file storage sites such as Dropbox, Box.com, Microsoft OneDrive and Google Drive.

Google Drive is one of the most popular online file storage services that allows you to store a wide variety of file types such as photos, documents, designs, videos, bookmarks and more. It works in conjunction with other office tools Google offers such as Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Forms, and Google Maps, and it simplifies sharing files and collaborating on them with your friends and co-workers. With its free plan and easy to use interface, Google Drive will be a good choice to meet your online store needs.

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There are currently two paid plans of Google Drive which offer 100 GB and 1 TB for a monthly fee. They are surely worth considering if you have a large amount of files to store but if you have a small archive of photos, videos or documents, the free version, which offers 15 GB, will be more than enough. Note that as it is also mentioned on your account's storage details page, this storage space is shared across various Google services such as Google Drive, Gmail -one of the widely used email account services-, and Google Photos.

How to Increase Google Drive Storage for Free

If you are getting close to your free account's storage limit but you can't afford to pay a monthly fee for more space, there are two things you can do to add free extra space to your Google Drive account, which I will talk about in detail below.

1. Add Extra Free Space to Google Drive on Safer Internet Day

For the last couple of years, including 2015 and 2016, Google has been offering 2 GB of free extra storage in Google Drive to those who completed account security checkup on the Safer Internet Day. It is not known yet but if Google runs the same promotion this year too, you can grab your free extra Google Drive storage of 2 GB.

What you will need to do is to visit the secure account page on your Google account and follow the instructions to maintain your account security on the Safer Internet Day. The date for this day is usually the second Tuesday of February, but if you don't want to miss it, keep an eye on the official website of the organization: saferinternetday.org. Also follow the news about any potential Google promotions for the upcoming Safer Internet Day to learn the details.

2. Be a Local Guide and Add Extra Free Space to Your Google Drive Account

Another method for adding free extra space to your Google Drive account is to become a local guide. Local Guides is a program Google is running which is aimed for participants to improve Google Maps experience by uploading photos, adding new places, fixing entries, posting reviews, answering others' questions.

You can register for free and start participating in this program immediately and contribute as much as you want (while staying within the terms). As also explained in detail on the Local Guides Benefits page, when you reach a certain level of contribution (Level 4 at this time) by earning points for all your activities, you will be provided a number of benefits on Google services, as well as a free upgrade to your Google Drive account to the 100 GB storage plan for two years.

The free storage reward was 1 TB when the program first started but as it became popular in time, it was reduced to 100 GB, which is still a lot more compared to 15 GB, the amount you can have in the free plan.

To reach Level 4 in Google's Local Guides may take some time depending on how active you will contribute. If you continue patiently and reach level 4 by earning 200 points, you will be rewarded with the 100 GB free extra storage.

Hopefully, these two tips will help you with increasing your free Google Drive account storage capacity.